Knives and Pens
by narniaXisXhome
Summary: Auden Rose is crazy. At least, according to her family. She has visions of the future, so they send her to Spenser, hoping they'll stop so Auden won't shame the family. But they just get worse at Spenser, and especially around the Sons of Ipswich... R&R!
1. Prologue

**Knives and Pens**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Covenant or any familiar characters; I would be the luckest girl alive if I did, but alas I do not. I also do not own the title "Knives and Pens"; Black Veil Brides does. I do not own any song lyrics that may appear at the beginning of a chapter either.**

_One final fight, for this tonight.  
With knives and pens we made our plight.  
And I can't go on without your love, you lost, you never held on.  
We tried out best... Turn out the light,  
Turn out the light.  
-Black Veil Brides, "Knives and Pens"_

**Prologue**

_The girl is being bound roughly by the wrists. She is a teenager-no older than seventeen but no younger than sixteen from the looks of it. Tears have stained her face, but now she is not crying and has a resigned look on her face._

_I have never seen this girl in my life, but she is beautiful in a different kind of way-at least, I can tell she _was _beautiful-with pale skin and golden eyes and raven hair I would envy if it were properly brushed and not tangled and matted with mud and sweat and tears and did not have hunks torn out from being pulled and pushed around._

_"Go on," the rugged "guard" says in a gruff voice. The girl spits at his feet and forces her chin up, refusing to budge. The guard, enraged, pulls hard on the rope that is binding her hands in front of her and she stumbles forward._

_Tears start streaming down her face as she whispers, "I will not scream or cry out."_

_"We'll see," the man says, tugging at the rope again. This time she stumbles, and during her trip her feet get caught in the thin tattered white dress they are making her wear, and she falls to her knees, bruising them on the cobblestone. He yanks her up roughly by the hair. Her knees almost buckle under her._

_He leads her out to the open cobblestone arena, where there is a crowd of people-even some children I note; the parents want their children to see the consequences for witchcraft so they won't get in to it themselves-waiting, watching. There is a tall wooden post in the middle of the area with more of the guards surrounding it, ready to tie her and burn her but also ready for her to put up a fight._

_This reminds me of a scene out of that old Disney cartoon The Hunchback of Notre Dame, except there is no sanctuary here, no one to save the girl, and I know somehow that I am witnessing the Salem Witch Trials; I am about to watch a young girl get burned to the stake for witchery._

_They finally reach the post, and the other guards help hoist her up while the man takes the rope he was leading her by and ties it all around her, wrapping her arms around the back of the stake and tying down her legs._

_I do not want to see anymore. I want to wake up. They start the fire, and I will myself to wake up so I will not hear the screams and smell the flesh burning. But I don't. I don't wake up._

_The fire is licking the girl's feet, and she is sobbing, but she is holding strong like she told the guard she would by not screaming. The orange and red flames snake up to her legs, and suddenly..._

_**The scene changes.** _

_This is no longer a third-party dream, me watching from the sky. Now _I _am the one bound at the wrists, being led by a male of eighteen by my guestimate, not much older than me. He looks at me and smiles. It is not a smile that says I-am-about-to-kill-you, but there is something unsettling about it and I shudder._

_I look over and see another girl with blonde hair who is also tied up, but she looks really scared. "Chase," she spits. "Don't do this." So she must know this guy, even though I have never seen him before in my life._

_He simply smiles at her too. I look away from him. Something about him unnerves me, scares me. I mean, he's holding his own little Salem Witch Trials from the looks of it. But I am not a witch! And I'm pretty sure-I don't know how I know, but somehow I do-that the blonde girl is not a witch either._

_I take in the setting around me. Mostly I see the charred remains of a building-which means the grass we're walking on is also burnt-and lots of trees. This isn't where the girl was getting burned to the stake at in the other part of my dream._

_Suddenly the guy stops, so we stop too. "Don't worry," he says, "you won't feel a thing."_


	2. Chapter 1

**Knives and Pens**

_I left you bound and tied  
With suicidal memories.  
Selfish beneath the skin  
But deep inside I'm not insane.  
I'm not insane, I'm not insane.  
-Avenged Sevenfold, "Almost Easy"  
_

**Chapter 1**

I am insane.

At least, according to my family. And not in the your-opinions-or-whatever-are-so-crazy way. I mean the clinical insane asylum type. You see, I have these dreams. And these dreams tend to come true ninety-nine percent of the time.

I have never believed in clairvoyance and ESP and all that, and I know for a fact that one hundred percent of fortune tellers are phonies. I cannot explain these visions, nor do I try to fathom or dwell on the subject too much. So I couldn't really tell you my feelings about them.

The first one was when I was ten years old. It was silly, really. I had a dream about finding a bird's nest in our back yard, and while I was peering into the nest and calling for my older brother to hurry up and come look, one of the baby birds sort of pushed--if a tiny newborn bird can actually _push--_in all of their scrambling and looking for mama, an egg out of the nest. The egg fell with a _splat _at my feet and cracked open. That was when I woke up, and I was really sad the next day, but before long I had forgotten all about that dream.

Then, at about five o'clock in the evening, I went out back to play. Although our house was not huge, we had the biggest back yard you could imagine, and when I was small and curious and imaginative, I loved it. There were not many trees in our yard, and the trees we did have were just small crepe myrtles. I heard a small peeping as I passed one of the crepe myrtles, and I did a double take to walk back to the tree I'd just passed.

There, nestled in the middle of the tiny branches of the trees, was the smallest--and _only_ at that time--bird's nest I had ever seen. There were small bluebirds, some whose heads had just barely poked out of eggs. I wondered where their mom was.

"David," I called in my shrill ten year old voice, "come quick!" My brother thought it was some kind of emergency, seeing as he took some time out of his busy teenage life to run out and see what was the matter.

"What?" he asked frantically. When I told him to look at the baby birdies he scoffed at me and shook the tree. I was worried, but nothing happened. David snorted.

I watched the baby birds. One was struggling to hatch from the shell. The other birds started sort of pecking at the hatchling. Suddenly, just as David turned to leave, still pissed at me, the egg fell, right at my feet. I started sobbing. David turned back around, and got even more angry when he saw what I was crying about.

"God. You're such a girl."

After he made me feel so horrible, I never told my family about the dream. I thought it meant nothing then. But when it started happening more frequently by my eleventh birthday, I began to wonder. The dreams--visions--became more meaningful, about things more crucial than a bird's nest and an egg cracking.

The biggest mistake I ever made was telling my family about the dreams. But I didn't until my fifteenth birthday, when they became so intense, like those dreams you have that you think are totally real, except five times worse. There was rarely a night I didn't wake up screaming, and that was when they started to "worry" about me, so I told them. It wasn't just that though. I was going to burst, crack open just like that egg if I didn't tell someone, and I was also afraid that I might actually kill myself or something because of the dreams.

My family just scoffed at me, as David had when I was ten. Until recently, because I won't drop it. And my screams in the night have become louder, my thrashing more terrifying, etcetra. I think they're going to send me to an insane asylum--a mental hospital, they're called now if I don't "stop this farce". Sorry to disappoint family, it's not a farce. The visions are real and terrifying. And if they don't go away by my eighteenth birthday, I just might check myself into a mental hospital before something bad happens.

* * *

Auden Rose Jacobson woke up with a start. _At least I didn't scream._ That dream about the girl getting burned at the stake was popping up more and more frequently. But the one about her was new. She pondered it for a moment as she wiped the cold sweat from her forehead. Where could that place have been at? Who was that guy that was going to kill her? And the blonde girl. He was going to kill her too.

She had been homeschooled with her neighbor's children for years because of the dreams. Her parents didn't want her going to school and spouting that nonsence lest everyone besides them think she was insane, and because all that witchcraft stuff would bring "shame to the family"--even though this _was _the twenty-first century with plenty of "witches" and Wiccans and all that and none of them got burned to the stake or thrown in the mental hospital--and anyway, Auden didn't believe in witches or witchcraft. The dreams were not witchcraft or of the devil; but she couldn't make her family see that. The second reason they decided to homeschool her was so that there was no peer pressure and stuff, and they thought that might help stop the dreams, if she had no real problems, and no one really to have dreams about. But that didn't help.

She peeled the thin sheets off of her sweaty body and got dressed for "school". _I really need a shower_, she thought, since her redish-brown hair was all sweaty and she couldn't do anything with it. _Oh well_, she thought, throwing it up in a ponytail.

She walked down to the kitchen. She wished she had a normal family, the kind where her father would be sitting at the table reading a newspaper and she would kiss his forehead then walk over and hug her mother, and her brother would be nice. Instead they were dysfunctional.

As she sat at the dining table, her adult brother David who had the maturity of a fifteen year old said, "So, any visions for us today? Am I gonna get hit by a car?"

"Actually, yes," Auden said in a condescending tone that matched her brother's, "you're finally going to get a girlfriend! And a life!"

"Shut up," he mumbled.

"Then you shut up," she shot back.

"Auden," her mother warned, placing a bowl of cereal in front of her.

_He started it._

There was no way she was going to tell her family about last night's dream. Because it wasn't a _vision_. The one that she kept having about the girl was definately just a dream, because it was about the past, about Salem. There were no more witch trials, and certainly not in the Ipswich Colony, or Massachusetts period. The one about her... she wasn't sure. Usually the dreams came true the day after she had them, if not in the next few hours. And seeing as she didn't know anyone called "Chase"--the only teenagers she knew were her neighbors whom she homeschooled with--and she was pretty sure she wasn't going to be lead to her death today, it was probably only a dream.

Her father walked into the room. Her parents were on the verge of divorce because of her; the "dreams" were tearing them apart, because they disagreed about what to do with her.

"Auden," her mother said, glancing at her dad. "We have something to tell you."

The spoon stopped halfway to her mouth. Then she just shrugged. "Shoot."

"We've made a decision," her mom said.

"Obviously the homeschooling is not having the effect we thought it would, and your grades aren't where we'd like them to be," her father said. "We know you're graduating next year but... we've decided maybe we took the wrong approach. Maybe it would be better if you were in an actual school environment, with friends, and away from us for a while. We're sending you to the Spenser Academy."

Just like a cliche, she spit out her cereal, which landed all over David's face. He snarled. "WHAT?!" she yelled. She breathed in and out for a few seconds till she calmed down. "You can't afford Spenser."

"It's cheaper than a...hospital," her dad said. "But we've got you in on a scholarship anyway. We think maybe the visions will stop if you're in a normal environment."

This was really embarrassing in front of her sadistic brother who was sure to torture her later, but Auden would not go down without a fight. "How is this not normal?" she argued. "A lot of perfectly smart and normal people are homeschooled. And _you _don't even homeschool me! Why do you think shipping me off to Spenser will make a difference?"

"If it doesn't work... we'll take more extreme measures," her dad said. "Just be sure you don't tell anyone about the dreams."

"But--"

"Auden," her mother said in a tone of finality, "you're going to Spenser. End of discussion."


	3. Chapter 2

**Knives and Pens**

_If I could see the future  
And how this plays out,  
I bet it's better than where we are now.  
But after going through this  
It's easier to see the reason why  
It's no surprise I won't be here tomorrow.  
-Daughtry, "No Surprise"_

**Chapter 2**

Auden Rose sighed as she slammed the car door closed and glanced at her new home. She had had a vision about Spenser last night. There were four guys that the vision singled out specifically. They had come up to her and offered to help show her around the school. They were almost like brothers, but not. There was something... strange about them. She wasn't sure what it meant, or who those guys were, or what their connection was, but she decided that instead of letting things play out like the vision, she would look for the guys herself. They must be important. Or maybe like her. _Ha ha_, she thought.

The school loomed over her, inauspicious and foreboding. She didn't even say goodbye to her parents and brother who were sitting in the car. _Good riddance_. She drew in a breath and walked, scanning the area for anything familiar from her vision. There were students all around, hanging out, in the same uniform that she was wearing. She had never had to wear a uniform in her life, but she already hated it. None of the faces sparked anything from her memory, and for a moment she thought this was hopeless.

She wished her 'powers' included some kind of honing in skill, like some kind of sight that would allow her to see exactly where who she wanted to find would be. _X-ray vision_, she thought dryly.

Auden Rose decided to walk up to the school, clique of boys or no clique of boys. They might be important to her part at this school-ha-or they might be the only friends she would make here, or maybe they would be her enemies, make fun or her or something. But she didn't really care either way. She walked up to the daunting door of Spenser Academy and held her breath as she opened it.

"Here, let me get that for you," came a voice behind her, and she turned around to see a blonde male reaching out his hand to hold the door open for her. _One of the guys from my dream!_

"Um, thanks," she mumbled, in wonderment that one of them actually found _her_. Was that what had happened in the dream? She didn't remember. All she remembered the dream showing her was their faces, actually.

"Reid," she heard someone else say, and now saw the three other members from the crew come up to them. "You don't have to hit on every single new girl." The one who spoke was muscular (then again, they all were) and had long hair compared to the short spiked hair of the two beside him and the short hair of the blonde one she now assumed was named Reid. _Holy crap_, she thought. _They're all gorgeous._

"I'm not hitting on her," the one named Reid said. "I'm just being polite, helping the new student around."

"Trying to get into her pants," the long haired one said again, and all of them but Reid laughed. Auden wasn't really appauled, because she _did _have an older brother, and she had a fairly good view into the mind of the teenage boy.

The one who wasn't pale like the others stepped around the long haired one and stuck out his hand. "Don't mind them. I'm Caleb."

"Auden Rose," she replied, shaking his hand. To her family it was just Auden, but to everyone else her name was Auden Rose, as if it was all one word: _Audenrose_. She pretty much hated her first name for being so unusual, and still wondered why in the world her parents had named her that. Supposedly it was the name of some poet, but her parents said they just liked the name, they didn't care who it originally belonged to.

"Caleb, you already have a girlfriend," Reid said. "Step aside." Now he stretched around Caleb's bulky form, because he was still behind them all holding the door since they were pretty much half in and half out, standing in the doorway and outside the school. "I'm Reid," he said to her, offering his hand.

"So I gathered," she replied, shaking his hand also. She knew she would have to watch out for this one. This girl addicts were always potential stalkers, but then they could also become the best of friends.

All of the introductions were made, and she found out that the long haired one was named Pogue and the other spiky haired one who hadn't yet spoken to her was named Tyler. "It's not fair," Tyler said as they were shaking hands. "Reid always gets all the girls."

"I do not," Reid replied bitterly. "These two stud men over here get all the girls. It's always just you and me together forever, Baby Boy," he joked, wrapping his arm around Tyler's waist and kissing him on the cheek. Tyler pretended to swat him away, but he was used to Reid's playful banter.

Caleb shook his head. "I cannot _wait _till graduation to get away from you two. Mainly you," he said to Reid; they all knew Caleb was kidding, but they didn't know he was really just masking his sadness. Of course, just because he was leaving Spenser didn't mean he was leaving Ipswich for good.

"I'm with ya man," Pogue said, playing along. "Oh," he said, suddenly remembering he hadn't introduced himself, "I'm Pogue."

Auden gave him a nod. "Nice to meet you all. Now, there are four of you, so can at least one of you show me around?"

Before any of them could answer, Spenser disappeared from in front of her, and she knew what was happening: a vision. She had never had them awake before, but there was something about those four... something that radiated and vibrated off of them-she could tell they had some kind of magic something or other surrounding them, although even in her circumstances she knew nothing about magic-that seemed to, she didn't know what. Empower her might not have been the term, but it was all she could think of as there was a white flash and her world went black.


	4. Chapter 3

**Knives and Pens**

_This sick strange darkness  
Comes creeping on so haunting every time.  
And as I stared I counted the webs from all the spiders  
Catching things and eating their insides.  
-blink-182, "I Miss You"_

**Chapter 3**

**A/N: Sorry it took SO freaking long for the update! I had planned to update almost every day in the summer, but then I started taking summer college classes and… yeah, super busy. But I swear to update more!**

_Spiders, everywhere, crawling through the hallway; I've always hated spiders. I try to scream, but no sound can comes out. I can feel them, crawling up my legs, and I stand very still, so still, hoping maybe they'll decide I'm not good enough and they'll leave me alone. No such luck. They keep crawling up, and now I can feel them on my arms and legs. I pray more than I have ever prayed in my life, hoping against hope that they won't bite me._

_I try to look around the hallway of Spenser, but it is so dark. I don't want to open my mouth because I fear the spiders will go in my mouth, but I need to cry out for help. None of my friends except one that I can think of might be lurking the halls in his bad boy way at this time of night, so I whimper his name, "Reid?" Didn't think really think he'd be here. "Caleb? Tyler? Pogue? Anyone?" I fleetingly thought of the irony that I could only make male friends here, but that thought quickly fled._

_I heard a noise. Footsteps. "Hello?" I call as loudly as I can without opening my mouth._

_Through the light filtering through from the windows, I can see a distinctly male figure stop right in front of me. "Well," he says. Even though it's dark, I know he looks familiar, I know I've heard that voice before, but I can't place it. I know for a fact he's not someone I met here at Spenser. "Looks like you're in quite a predicament," he continues, quite patronizingly. The tone of his voice makes me want to punch him, but I cannot move a single muscle._

_"Please," I whisper. "You have to help me. Get them off. Make them go away."_

_But they're already retreating down the hallway, as if his very presence warded them off or they were just a figment of my imagination. I blow out all the breath I was holding. "Thank you so much." No matter how condescending he is, my gratefulness overwhelms my fierce nature._

_"Chase," he says, and holds out his hand. I shake it warily. "But I really didn't do anything."_

_I shake my head. "You saved my life. If you hadn't walked up…" I trail off, not wanting my thoughts to head in that direction._

_He smirks. "Anytime."_

_I smile at him. There is something so dark about him, like an aura, that screams at me to run right now, but I can't. I'm somehow also drawn to him._

_And that's when I notice. There is a spider, sitting on his shoulder._

* * *

Auden Rose gasped awake. She sat up then looked all around her; nothing was familiar. She was not outside the school anymore. She didn't know where she was. She thought a hospital room at first glance, but there wasn't near enough electronics for it to be a hospital and it didn't have that nasty medicinal smell.

Suddenly there were four faces peering into hers. Caleb, Pogue, Reid, and Tyler. So they had all come here with her, they knew where she was?

"I'm fine, really," she told them to get them all out of her face, but her voice was very weak and quiet and they looked disbelieving. She shifted a little to try to get comfortable. "Where am I? What happened?"

"We brought you to the infirmary," Tyler explained. "Apparently this school is too big for a nurse's office," he joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"You passed out," Caleb explained solemnly. He looked like he wanted to reach out to her, but he didn't. Auden shied away from the electricity and repressed what she was maybe starting to feel about him. She had just met him after all. And, he was probably just a compassionate person, he probably had a girlfriend.

Reid sat on the hospital bed/cot thing. But not gently either. He practically hopped onto the cot then stared directly into her face. "Nervous about meeting so many hot guys?" he teased. Gosh, he was even more arrogant than the guy from her visions.

"No, I—" she stopped herself. It was strange; she had never passed out upon having a vision before. Maybe it _was _the new environment, a place she wasn't familiar with that had overwhelmed her and caused her to black out in real time during the vision. Then again, they also mostly happened while she slept, so how would she know? "Never mind. Just…if that happens again, please don't bring me here. I'll be fine."

"So you pass out often?" Pogue questioned.

"No! No, I just… never mind. Don't worry about me."

Reid wagged a finger in her face. "We're not going to let you get off that easily. Please, do tell."

She sighed. "Well... it's nothing. There's a reason I got shipped off her to Spenser, but really, you wouldn't believe me even if I did tell you the truth, so what you don't know won't hurt you."

"Try us," Caleb said. The four boys exchanged secretive glances. "There's probably nothing you could put past us that we won't believe. Trust all of us."

Auden sighed. Should she tell them? Or should she just make up some story and lie to them so they wouldn't think she's crazy?


	5. Chapter 4

**Knives and Pens**

_I have erased you.  
I have escaped the bitter taste of you.  
__-Three Days Grace, "Bitter Taste"_

**Chapter 4**

Auden Rose was not listening to the babble of the blonde girl walking beside her: Sarah Wenham, Caleb Danvers's girlfriend (not only had her assumption been right, but upon being introduced to Sarah by Caleb she had suddenly remembered something Reid had said of Caleb when she'd first encountered them: "You already have a girlfriend...".)

Sarah was a nice enough girl, and God knows Auden Rose would be the last person to stereotype, but she couldn't help it. She couldn't help but think _of course he would go for the blonde haired, blue-eyed, big boobed type_. She stopped herself. She had no right to be jealous, especially not over a guy she had just met and didn't know anything about. There was something about all those boys that made her careful about everything she said and did. She wouldn't necessarily say something dark, but it was something forbidding indeed...

In the end she hadn't told the Sons-as Sarah called them all-the truth. In fact, she'd gotten out of saying anything because right at that moment the nurse walked into the infirmary and shooed all four boys out. Then, when she had assured the nurse she was fine and had just passed out from heat and nervousness over her first day, and no she didn't need anymore tests, she said she was fine, so could she please leave now? who had been waiting for her outside the door but Caleb Danvers himself. All the others-well, except maybe Reid-had gone to class, he told her, and he was to leave her in the hands of someone who had an off period right now and would show her where her dorm was. That someone, his girlfriend, Sarah.

"So why do they call them The Sons of Ipswich?" Auden asked, finally speaking and interrupting whatever Sarah had been blabbing about before.

Sarah laughed. "I once asked that same question." She got quiet for a second, and Auden got the feeling Sarah was not going to tell her the entire story. "Caleb, Pogue, Tyler, and Reid are called the Sons of Ipswich because they come from the five original families in the Ipswich colony: Danvers, Parry, Simms, Garwin, and Putnam." Her voice got quieter on the last bit, which piqued Auden's curiousity.

"Five? Putnam? Who's the fifth Son?"

Sarah cleared her throat. "The Putnams were killed during the Salem Witch Trials."

"They were witches?"

"I didn't say that!" Sarah was suddenly very defensive. "I said they were killed during that time." After that there was a long major silence neither girl was about to break.

"Here we are," Sarah said as they came up on dorm number 18. "You're so lucky," Sarah said as she turned to Auden Rose while simultaneously turning the knob. "You get a room all to yourself."

_Not so lucky, _Auden thought as they opened the door and she got a first glimpse inside. About the only thing in the room still intact was the bed. The rest was... trashed.

"There must be some kind of mistake here," Sarah mumbled. "We should go talk to Headmaster Higgins about this. In the meantime, you could put a cot in my and Kate's dorm if you want..." Kate Tunney, she had gathered from all of Sarah's talk, was Pogue's girlfriend.

"No, no, that's fine, I'm sure the Headmaster will have an explanation. And maybe another dorm..."

Sarah shrugged. "Right this way then."

* * *

Headmaster Provost Higgins was about as baffled by the dorm scene as the two girls were. In his office, he assured them that they had just cleaned out the dorm for Auden's arrival and it was perfectly fine. When the girls insisted, he came with them to inspect the dorm.

"Well, Miss Jacobson," Provost said, tone confused, "I have no idea what could have happened here. We will get a crew on cleaning this up immediately, and find the culprit that did this. In the meantime..."

"She can stay in my dorm," Sarah offered.

"No," Auden insisted. "The bed is fine. I can sleep in here, no problem."

Higgins looked nervous, as did Sarah. "No, if there is some real danger I don't think it best for you to be alone, especially not in this room..." Higgins was thinking of the murders that had taken place that past year, but Sarah knew better and was thinking this may or may not be Chase Collins's doing. "We'll figure something out. I think it would be way too packed for her to stay in your room, Miss Wenham, but... hopefully we can get this cleared out by tonight and find you a potential roommate..."

Higgins began to walk away, and Sarah followed. They thought Auden Rose was following too. But she was staring into the room still. _Why didn't I see this? _she thought. _Why didn't I see who did this? Why did I have to see a useless vision about spiders when I could have prevented someone from trashing my room? _

She heard a noise close to her and was immediately plunged back to reality. Someone was stepping out of the shadows and coming toward her... laughing. She recognized him almost instantly. Reid Garwin.

"You," she spat. How dare he trash her room for no reason at all!


	6. Chapter 5

**Knives and Pens**

_I just gotta stay calm  
Before I let this time bomb  
Blow up in my face.  
-Escape The Fate, "Issues"_

**Chapter 5**

"Chillax, Rosie," Reid said with a smirk. As he continued to walk toward her Auden instinctively took a step back. His bad boy air had at first been somewhat alluring, but now, after seeing her room trashed and what Reid was capable of doing, she knew she should be afraid... He noticed her fear and his smirk grew wider. Auden Rose mentally kicked herself. "I didn't trash your room. In fact, I was just hanging around to ask if you were coming to the party at The Dells tonight..." The sneer on his face stayed until he leaned against the doorway of what was supposed to be her room. His body was facing Auden, but he turned his head to look in the room and immediately became serious.

Auden finally realized what he had just called her. "Whoa. Never call me 'Rosie' again!"

Reid's almost ever-present smirk returned suddenly. "Looks like that's the least of your worries right now, _Rosie._"

Auden Rose drew in a breath to compose herself so she wouldn't do something like punch Reid Garwin in the face. "If you didn't trash my room...who did?" she asked him, watching him intently.

"I don't know," he admitted. Surprisingly Auden Rose believed him. He pushed off the doorway and walked slowly into her room. "But I have an idea..."

A random guy she'd never seen before suddenly appeared beside Auden. She hadn't even heard his footsteps coming down the hallway. "Why, hello there," he said with one of those smirks Auden was getting so used to. What was with this school and egotistical guys? Tyler followed in Reid's footsteps with the bad-boy-leer thing, Pogue was...Pogue; cocky, but not the annoying kind like Reid (and consequently Tyler). And now this guy. Then again, maybe all guys were so cocky. Except Caleb. He was confident in himself, but not conceited like the other guys at Spenser. She'd homeschooled her whole life, so she didn't really have any experience with any males aside from her stupid brother... "I'm Aaron Abbot," the guy said, sticking out his hand. What on earth was she going to do with all these boys? "And you are...?"

"Auden Rose," she replied, annoyed, and shook his hand.

Aaron peeked in to her room and let out a low whistle. "This is your first day, right?" Auden nodded. "Looks like someone's already out to get you. Garwin," he said in a bitter way, finally acknowledging Reid.

Reid was at the door in almost an instant. "Screw off, Abbot," he spat. They were suddenly in each others' faces.

_Boys will be boys_, Auden Rose thought with an inaudible sigh before stepping in between the two. Sheltered as she was, she'd never seen boys act like this over her...

"Really, boys? If you can't be nice, at least one of you has to go."

The boys ignored her, continuing to glare at each other. "Nice job you did here, Garwin," Aaron said. "Wait till I tell Higgins how I witnessed you trashing the poor innocent new girl's room." He stated this as if it were true, as if he really _had _seen Reid trashing Auden's room.

Reid let out a sound close to a snarl, and Auden realized there was nothing she could do to prevent these two from fighting if they wanted to fight; the mix of all that testosterone and some old feud between them was something Auden Rose could not control.

"Reid, don't," Auden Rose said quietly and less confidently as a last ditch effort.

Reid glanced at her, and his eyes seemed to be saying _this isn't your fight. _She braced herself for the first punch to be thrown, when suddenly Pogue appeared behind Aaron. "What are you ladies up to?" he asked, knowing full well Reid would never stand down from an altercation with Abbot. In fact, to Pogue Reid seemed to just look for every opportunity to fight...

Auden Rose shot Pogue a look that said _thank you. _He gave her one nod.

"Well, I saw this girl I'd never seen before," Aaron began, "so I just had to come over and introduce myself. Then I was going to ask her to come with me to the party at the Dells tonight. But Garwin very rudely interrupted me." He looked pointedly at Reid then turned his attention back to Auden Rose. "I gotta get to class. Meet me at the party tonight." And he actually winked. Auden had to hold her breath to keep from cracking up. She had no interest whatsoever in Aaron Abbot. In fact, he was just a pain in the butt,distracting her from the task at hand...her trashed room, her visions, and The Sons of Ipswich. Starting with her trashed room.

She noticed both Pogue and Reid were staring at her expectantly. "I really can't go to a party tonight," she said finally. "I have to find out who did this." She turned back to her room and frowned. Spenser was a big school. It could have been anyone. Including Aaron Abbot, for that matter. From what she'd seen of him, it wouldn't have surprised her if he'd done it just so he could frame Reid. And maybe Tyler too.

"Whatever," Reid said, pushing past her to leave the room. "You're missing out."

"Kate and Sarah will probably force you to go," Pogue said. "Just so they can give you one of their makeovers or whatever." The idea didn't really appeal to Auden.

"I'll consider it," she said. "I just...need some alone time to sort through this first." Both boys left her to face the inevitable: getting her dorm back into liveable shape.

It was a very daunting task. Auden sat on the now lopsided and rumpled bed as she stared at the mess in front of her. The dresser's drawers were all over the place, the contents of her suitcases strewn all over the room, papers everywhere. Higgins was sending a crew, but she really didn't want any more strangers touching all her stuff. _Maybe I will go to that party tonight_, she thought. At the very least, it might take her mind off everything. _If I can salvage a wearable outfit_, she thought, resolving finally that it might be best just to borrow something from Kate or Sarah. She would go to their room after dinner and actually let them make her over, like Pogue had said.

* * *

"I'm right behind you," Auden Rose promised Sarah and Kate. They didn't question her because they assumed she was just making sure their room was locked up tight so they wouldn't have a repeat of her room on their hands.

She turned to face the door, jiggling the knob to make sure that it was, in fact, locked. Sarah and Kate were outside waiting for her. The hall was alarmingly empty for such a large school, and it was already very dark. Surely the whole school couldn't be at the party...

She walked slowly down the hallway, feeling both paranoid and a nagging sense of deja vu. But that was impossible. Suddenly, she saw something scurrying across the hall, and she jumped. Then, out of nowhere, came the spiders. Everywhere, all around her. Auden tried to scream, but no sound would come out. She hated spiders more than anything. She decided to stand completely still, hoping the spiders would leave her alone, but no such luck. She could feel them crawling up her legs, then crawling all over her arms.

She used her peripheral vision to see if anyone else was in the hallway with her; it was entirely too dark, but she knew was still all alone. There was no one to save her. She wanted to open her mouth and try to scream again, but she was so afraid that the spiders would crawl into her mouth that she kept it shut. There was only one of her friends she could think of that might purposely arrive at the party late, might be lurking the halls at this time of night in his bad boy way just for the heck of it. She whimpered his name. "Reid?" She didn't really think he would be there, was just throwing out her last lifeline. "Caleb? Tyler? Pogue?" Nothing. She fleetingly thought of the irony that her making mostly male friends here, but that quickly fled. "Sarah? Kate? Anyone?"

She heard a noise. Footsteps. "Hello?" she called as loudly as she could without opening her mouth.

Through the moonlight filtering in from the windows she could see a distinctly male figure stop right in front of her.

"Well," he said. Even though it was dark she knew he looked familiar, that she had heard his voice somewhere before, but in her fear she couldn't place it. She just knew she didn't meet him at Spenser. "Looks like you're in quite a predicament," he continued, quite patronizingly. Ordinarily she would have wanted to punch him for that tone of voice, but she was immobilized at present.

"Please," she whispered. "You have to help me. Get them off. Make them go away."

But they were already retreating down the hallway, as if his very presence warded them off or they were just a figment of Auden's imagination. She blew out all the breath she was holding. "Thank you so much." No matter how condescending he was, her gratefulness overwhelmed my fierce nature.

"Chase," he said, and held out his hand. She shook it warily. "But I really didn't do anything."

Auden shook her head. "You saved my life. If you hadn't walked up…" She trailed off, not wanting her thoughts to head in that direction.

He smirked. "Anytime."

She smiled at him. There was something so dark about him, like an aura, that screamed at her to run right then, but she couldn't. She was somehow also drawn to him.

And that was when she noticed. There was a spider, sitting on his shoulder.

"Umm..." she started, but before she could say something about the spider he cut her off.

"Don't you have a party to go to?" Chase asked.

"Oh, yeah," she said. The party was the last thing on her mind. "Are you going?"

"I think I'll pass this time. Have fun." He kissed the top of her hand. "It was very nice to meet you..." he trailed off then looked at her to fill in the blank.

"Auden Rose." She smiled. "See you around."

And as she walked off to find Kate and Sarah outside, leaving him staring after, she remembered where she had seen him, why this whole scene felt like deja vu, and a chill ran up her spine. The vision. About the spiders.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**Disclaimer: Don't own The Covenant!**

_There I was again tonight,  
Forcing laughter, faking smiles...  
Your eyes whispered have we met?  
Crossed the room, your silhouette  
Starts to make its way to me...  
-Taylor Swift, "Enchanted"_

She knew she was being distant, but she couldn't help it. Every one of her friends had come over trying to get her to join them, and even some people she'd never met had approached her, but Auden could not leave her seat by the bonfire. She was too consumed with her thoughts, with all the questions surrounding Ipswich, the Sons, this Chase character, and Spenser Academy itself.

She wondered what the spiders could possibly mean; she had never seen so many thousands—no, millions—of spiders in one place in her entire life. And then to just suddenly scurry off into thin air? It was just so...surreal. It didn't happen. It shouldn't have been possible. Then again, should visions of the future be possible?

Then there was Chase. Dark, dangerous, very very conceited to the point of great annoyance, yet...somewhat charming. No, no, not charming. But the way smiled then kissed her hand... _Stop it. You're desperate. You don't know this guy, you're being stupid and suddenly boy crazy. You've never had a boyfriend, and don't start now. Don't stoop to the first guy who is sweet to you_...She couldn't even really see his face it was so dark. Not that appearances matter...

She had to figure out what was up with this Chase guy and push away any other thoughts. Besides, hadn't she deluded herself into thinking she was developing feelings for Caleb earlier that day? _Way to be a slut, Auden Rose Jacobson_, she told herself. _"Falling for" two guys in one day? Tsk, tsk. One of them you dropped the second you found out he has girlfriend, the other you've met once, and barely at that. _So. Chase. Was in her vision about the spiders. The entire thing had come back to her, and she remembered how even in her vision he had been familiar. She considered the possibility that the vision was just covering every aspect, that she would remember Chase from the vision itself when it came true, but she didn't think that was it. She tried to think back to any other visions she'd had leading up to her trip to Spenser, and came up blank.

He could be dangerous. Maybe that was what the vision was trying to tell her. But then, she'd had a vision about the Sons, and they were all being nice to her and seemed perfectly normal and not at all dangerous. In fact, she'd sought them out herself. Normally there was more to the people in her visions, and maybe it was too early to tell, but she thought this time was different. Maybe her visions were just helping her make new friends. Even Chase.

Someone sat down beside her, cutting into her thoughts, and handed her a beer. She took it before looking up and seeing Tyler Simms's face in the light of the bonfire. She smiled at him and gestured with the beer by moving it. "Thanks." She stared down into the cup. She didn't really drink...

"Are you okay?" he asked. "You seem kind of... distant." This was the most she had heard out of Tyler since arriving at Spenser. Had it really just been that morning? So much had happened since then, enough to take up at least a week.

Distant. The word she had just used to describe herself.

"Yeah, I just...have a lot on my mind. First day and all."

"Yeah, Reid told me about your room," Tyler said with a frown.

Auden snorted. "The dorm is the least of my worries right now."

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked softly.

Auden looked at him. He was being nice; she'd underestimated him. She always just thought of him as a Reid wannabe, never took the time to stop comparing him to Reid and seeing if there was an actual person named Tyler inside him somewhere. She really did think Tyler could be a good close friend, and she wanted him as one if that were possible; he seemed like he would be more loyal and trustworthy than anyone she'd met at Spencer thus far—even if he was a follower. Or maybe she just didn't understand what he had with Reid yet—now that she was getting a glimpse of the real him. It was worth a shot. And at this point, she was just _desperate_ for a confidant—no matter who it was, no matter if they were male or female—and a close friend.

She let out a choked laugh. "Doesn't matter." She pulled a chunk of grass out of the ground with her free hand—she still hadn't touched the beer—and threw it into the fire. "Whether I want to talk about it or not." She looked at him straight in the eyes. "I'd get locked up. I'm insane. Anyone I talked to would think so. That's why I'm at Spencer"—she looked away—"'cause I'm crazy. Next stop is the loony bin."

"You don't seem crazy," he said quietly.

Auden Rose laughed again. "_Seem _being the keyword," she mumbled. She looked at him again. "You wouldn't believe me anyway."

His clear blue eyes held a challenge as he said, "Try me."

She held his gaze for a moment longer before breaking it to look just past him where other cliques were seated—very close to them—around the bonfire whispering confidentially to each other.

"Come on," he said, standing up and reaching a hand down as if he had read her mind that there was no way she would talk here anyway.

She looked at his hand, contemplating, before finally taking it and letting him pull her up. She let him lead a her a ways, and they passed right by a clustered group that consisted of Pogue Parry, Caleb Danvers, Reid Garwin, Sarah Wenham, and Kate Tunney. "Was that...?" Kate said, halting the conversation.

Reid grinned. "Get it, Baby Boy!" he yelled.

Was Auden just imagining or did Tyler seriously just blush? She suppressed a grin. Then she realized she might have to make it very clear that she wanted nothing more than to be friends... All of the Sons were admittedly gorgeous, but she did not have those kinds of feelings for Tyler...

He stopped in front of a dark Hummer and opened the passenger's side door for her before walking over to the driver's side. When he saw her hesitation he said, "Hop in."

She slowly climbed in and closed the door. "Where are we going?" she asked finally.

"I figured you needed a break from all this," he said, nodding his head toward the party at the Dells. "We're going to Nicky's."

"Nicky's?" she questioned curiously, but he didn't reply as he started up the car. Auden gave up. "Won't they be wondering where their ride went?" she asked, assuming the boys had all ridden in Tyler's car since Kate had parked hers next to it. Sarah said Caleb had a Mustang, but she hadn't seen it here.

He just smiled. "They can live with it."

The entire ride was completely silent except from the radio that was only a low hum. As Tyler pulled into the parking lot of Nicky's, Auden saw that it was... "A bar?"

Tyler still didn't say anything, just parked the car. She sighed and waited a moment before getting out and following him in. She had to jog to catch up.

People were playing pool, fiddling with the jukebox, or at the bar itself. Tyler led her to a secluded corner booth, and they slid in across from each other. "You want anything?" he asked. She shook her head and he just shrugged.

She realized it was awkwardly silent and she looked up to find him waiting, looking at her expectantly. So it was only awkward for her. She didn't know how to get this out. She'd only ever told her family, and that had just gone so well...

Auden Rose cleared her throat. "Well...where to begin?"

"How about why you're at Spenser? Why the next step is 'the loony bin'?" he prodded.

She shook her head, thinking for a moment. Finally she thought of it. "Remember when I passed out earlier?" she asked.

He laughed. "How could I not?"

"Well...I never really told y'all _why _I passed out. I was seeing something," she ventured.

"Something like...?" Tyler pressed.

She sucked in a deep breath. "I was having a vision."

He just raised an eyebrow, waiting for further explanation.

"I've been having them ever since I can remember," she continued. "They always come true. Lately they've been pretty...dark. They haven't come true yet though."

"What happened?" he asked.

"I honestly don't remember. There's one about a girl being burned at the stake and then...I don't remember the rest." She shook her head, digging in her brain to find it but coming up blank.

"Wow," he said. "So the one you had today..."

"Wasn't important," Auden finished. For some reason she felt she should not talk about the spiders, about what had happened. "But, I did have one about you guys..." She smiled mysteriously.

"Oh, really? And what happened in that one?"

"Nothing really. Last night, before I came to Spenser, I dreamed about meeting y'all in front of the school on my first day. And, well, if you need proof that that one came true..."

He grinned. "So this makes you crazy?"

She turned somber. "My family thinks so. They thought sending me to Spenser would make it stop. It's only made them worse; before today I never had one while I was awake..."

"You know," Tyler mused, "I still don't think you're crazy. Believe me, I've seen _way _crazier stuff..."

"Like?" His turn to confess.

He just smiled. "Wouldn't you love to know."

"Okay, I just tell you about my insane ability to see the future and you just...leave me with that?" She shook her head. "I'm gonna go check out the jukebox." She was such a sucker for all things music.

The jukebox was now empty, and Auden Rose began to flip through it. "I Love Rock N' Roll" by Joan Jett was there, of course. She was looking, though, for any Beatles tune. Preferably "She Loves You" or "Eleanor Rigby", but any would do. Or maybe something country. She was suddenly in one of her country moods...

She felt someone staring her, felt eyes boring into her back, and she looked up. Only to find Chase sitting at the bar near the jukebox, watching her, never wavering.

* * *

**So. I'm not going to, but say I were to put Auden Rose with one of the Sons. Who do you guys, my faithful readers, like her with best: Tyler or Reid? Or Caleb?**


End file.
